'Bin Laden won’t be caught alive'

Al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden “will never appear in an American courtroom,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told lawmakers at a hearing on Tuesday.

“Let’s deal with the reality here,” Holder said in response to aggressive questioning by Rep. John Culberson (R-Tex.).

“The reality is we will be reading Miranda rights to a corpse.”

Members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science pressed the nation's top law enforcement official about the Justice Department response to the failed Christmas Day bombing plot and the aborted decision to try the alleged September 11 masterminds in a civilian court in Lower Manhattan.

Holder grew most heated, however, amid GOP attacks over the hypothetical capture of bin Laden.

No law enforcement response would be necessary, Holder said, because “he will be killed by us or by his own people. I was being a little flippant. . . . He is not going to be alive.”

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